Sunday Re-Run

Sunday Re-Run

I wrote this a couple years ago, almost to the day. I just thought it was kind of funny. Statistical Analysis.

Floors

I keep an Almanac on the back of the toilet. I read it when I'm moving my bowels. Out with the bad, in with the good, I always say.

Something I ran across whilst perusing my almanac...statistics involving the number of injuries caused by certain household/daily objects.

Actually, the name of the chart was Estimated Number of Injuries in U.S. from Selected Products, 2002.

There are a couple of household/daily objects that caught my eye, on the injury list.

Way down at the bottom of the list, with 37,285 estimated injuries in 2002, were Refrigerators and Freezers. Numbers don't explain everything. But what I first imagined when I read that number was 37,285 Americans wrestling with a fridge, and pulling it over on themselves. It's just how my mind works. Then, it occurred to me that some of the injuries must also have been things like people who locked themselves in an old abandoned refrigerator. And I thought smugly to myself, I learned never to do that when I was a youth, because I watched Punky Brewster.

And in a very special episode, Punky taught us not to play in refrigerators unless there's somebody around who knows CPR.

On up the list, I found Televisions and TV Stands, which caused an estimated 50,021 injuries in 2002. Again, I pictured 50,000 Americans pulling televisions over on themselves. But I also wondered how many these injuries came about as the result of fools falling off the roof of their house adjusting an antenna or a satellite dish. Or if those stats would come under Roof, or something.

Higher up, coming in at #15, or thereabouts, was Trampoline. Now, I can believe that trampolines caused some 89,393 injuries. I'm surprised they haven't caused more. My friend Lindsey's trampoline must have caused at least 20 back in 1986, including the time Lindsey jumped from the second story deck, onto the trampoline, and then landed face-first on the ground some 20 feet away.

I can still remember Lindsey looking up, face bleared with mud and blood, and asking "Was that awesome or what?!?!?!"

But it was the item at #1 that caught my eye. Because of the weight of its advantage over the #2 cause of injuries in America, in 2002.

#2 is basketball. Yep, Basketball is a big old bunch of Number Two. Especially that NBA garbage.

(I have never been simultaneously so proud and so ashamed of anything I've written here than I am that last line...it's why we call the blog Big Stupid Tommy)

But Basketball caused around 615,546 injuries in 2002. I'd assume that's stuff like contusions and cuts from all the chair shots.

But up at #1, chiming in with an astounding 2,028,968 injuries caused in the year 2002: Stairs, Ramps, Landings and Floors

That's 2 mil over 600 thou, from the one spot to the two spot.

I think you can call that domination. Way to go America.

But then I got to thinking about it.

Stairs causing accidents? That, I can buy. I can get tripped up with the best of them on some stairs. In fact, once upon a time, I managed to trip, hurt my wrist, burn myself on the coffee I was carrying and ruin a book all in one stumble thanks to MTSU's James Union Building's front steps.

Ramps? Yeah, I'll buy that, too. Isn't that how Harry Knowles hurt himself, not respecting the ramp? I've tumbled down a ramp or two in my time. I blame alcohol.

Landings....that's where this statistic starts straining its credibility.

Damn, boy! That's one alliterative turn of phrase!

But a landing? That's just a flat part at the top, bottom, or turning point on a stair case.

But then, I thought...how many times have you overestimated the number of steps on a staircase? Which is worse? When you get to the top, you think there's one more, and you step up for that last phantom step, and you just goose step it? Or when you're coming down steps and you think there's one more, and you end up jamming you're entire leg up into your kidney?

That considered, landings causing injuries, I can buy.

But Floors?

Come the hell on. Floors?!?!?!

Floors don't cause injuries.

Period.

Floors are just doing their job. They're just there. You fell. And because there's nothing else there to fall on, you fell onto the floor.

You injured yourself when you fell. The floor didn't injure you. The floor didn't reach up and punch you, or anything. You were clumsy. Floors don't hurt people, people hurt people. We might as well just blame Gravity. The floor was there.

Whaddaya want to do? Blame the floors? Well...Let's just get rid of the floors!!!

Yeah. Now I'm being ridiculous, you say. We all know that we can't get rid of floors. Where would we put our dirty laundry, you ask? Where would the pee go when we miss the toilet altogether? What would stop us from plummeting through the Earth all the way to Hell when we fell?

Aha!

Therein lies the rub. We all know, as we have all been taught for generations: We have floors to stop our clumsy asses from plummeting all the way through the Earth all the way to Hell when we trip and fall.

So I say we should all be thankful for the floors.

Otherwise, Burned Alive in Fiery Pits of Hell would come in WAY up top on the list of injury causes.

As it stands now, Burned in Hell comes in somewhere below Power home workshop saws, with some 85,211 injuries caused, but just above Nursery Equipment....

And I, for one, intend to keep it that way....

I'm Tommy, and ya'll think about it, okay?